User Accounts & Saved Searches: Users have the option of creating a private account that lets them save their personal searches. The feature gives users a quick and easy index from which to re-run their searches for new and updated information.

Congressional Record Search-by-Speaker: New metadata has been added to the Congressional Record that enables searching the daily transcript of congressional floor action by member name from 2009 – present. The member profile pages now also feature a link that returns a list of all Congressional Record articles in which that member was speaking.

Nominations: Users can track presidential nominees from appointment to hearing to floor votes with the new nominations function. The data goes back to 1981 and features faceted search, like the rest of Congress.gov, so users can narrow their searches by congressional session, type of nomination and status.

Africa S. Hands is an independent librarian with a focus on helping professionals understand and utilise social media and search engines through one-on-one tutorials and small group workshops. Africa tweets (@africahands) on resources of interest to information and higher education professionals.